Geography

We aim to provide a geography education that inspires pupils’ curiosity about the world and its people, that will foster their fascination with the world for the rest of their lives.  Pupils should gain knowledge of places, people, physical and human environments together with the physical and human processes that can explain how the world is interconnected.  As pupils mature and make progress, their knowledge and understanding about the world should deepen.  The geographical knowledge, understanding and skills learnt provide an approach that attempts to explain how the Earth’s physical and human landscapes are shaped at different scales around the world together with how they interconnect and change over time.

We have a role in providing a geographical education for pupils to be responsible and informed citizens, not only in our in our local community, but also as global citizens.  Our primary goal is to teach and guide young people to be successful with their geographical learning in school and at home, and to reflect on the impact they have on the local, national and global community that they live in.

Key Stage 3

Pupils should extend their knowledge of the world’s major countries and their physical and human features from primary school. They should understand how geographical processes interact to create distinctive human and physical landscapes that change over time. In doing so, they should become aware of an increasingly complex world around them. They should develop greater competence using geographical knowledge, concepts and geographical skills to analyse and interpret different data sources. In this way pupils will continue to enrich their locational knowledge and spatial and environmental understanding.

The curriculum is primarily based on the teaching of geographical themes with complexity increasing as pupils mature through time.  For instance, in Year 7, pupils learn geographical skills and then apply them to other themes such as rivers and coasts.

Pupils’ study of geography at KS3 is an important preparation for study at GCSE because it provides important knowledge, understanding and skills needed to understand concepts at a higher level. 

Key Stage 4

At GCSE we aim to teach students four essential learning traits.  To know like a geographer, think like a geographer, study like a geographer and apply like a geographer.  To know like a geographer, pupils develop and extend their knowledge of locations, places, environments and processes at different scales.  Further, pupils develop their knowledge of social, political and cultural contexts.  We aim to teach pupils to think like a geographer by gaining an understanding of the interactions between people and environments and the change in places and processes over space and time.  These are interactions between geographical phenomena at different scales and in different contexts.  To learn like a geographer, pupils also develop and extend their competence in a range of skills including those used in fieldwork and investigative approaches to questions and hypotheses.  To apply like a geographer, pupils apply geographical knowledge, understanding, skills and data to places and topical issues, and develop evidenced arguments drawing on their geographical knowledge and understanding.

Key Stage 5

At A Level, we teach students to develop their knowledge of locations, places, physical and human processes and environments at different scales, from local to global linked to examples and case studies.  Students learn to analyse the complexity of people-environment interactions at different scales and understand how these connections underpin some of the important environmental issues people are facing today.  Students are taught about the key concepts of causality, systems, equilibrium, feedback, inequality, representation, identity, globalisation, interdependence, mitigation and adaptation, sustainability, risk, resilience and thresholds as a way of analysing and evaluating their geography work.

We aim to develop students’ knowledge and ability to engage, as citizens, with topical issues.  Students should be confident and competent in selecting, using and evaluating a range of quantitative and qualitative skills and applying them.  Students should understand the important role of fieldwork as a tool to understand and generate new knowledge about the real world, and become skilled at planning, undertaking and evaluating fieldwork in places.  Students are taught to apply geographical knowledge, understanding, skills and approaches in a rigorous way to a range of geographical questions and issues, including those identified in fieldwork, recognising both the contributions and limitations of geography.  Finally, students should develop as critical and reflective learners, enabling them to give informed opinions, suggesting relevant new ideas, and providing evidenced arguments in a range of situations.

Additional information

Pupils’ learning experiences in geography, are to a large extent built on constructivism, where they learn and build their own knowledge, understanding and skills through experiencing, observing and reflecting on previous learning.   In geography, when pupils encounter something new about the world, they often link it to a previous experience and adjust their view of the world.  We believe that pupils’ ability to ask geographical questions, explore places and concepts is an important part of their learning at Faringdon Community College.  In a way, the transition in learning from KS3 to GCSE and A Level shows constructivism in action.

Learning geography primarily takes place in the classroom, but fieldwork opportunities are planned where staffing and logistical practicalities permit it to take place. At GCSE pupils are entitled to two days of fieldwork during the course and that usually takes place both in Year 10 and 11 with a physical geography fieldwork coastal experience at Christchurch Bay in Year 10, and in a human geography urban fieldwork experience within Bristol in Year 11.  These experiences are assessed in a GCSE exam.  In Year 12, a residential fieldwork experience is delivered in Pembrokeshire and is assessed in an AS exam or as part of a geographical investigation non-examined assessment with additional fieldwork undertaken during single days.

Not only do pupils develop their geographical knowledge and understanding of the world, but they also learn and develop new graphical, cartographic and statistical skills to be able to interpret patterns in the world around us.  Learning geography at KS3, GCSE and A Level not only provides pupils with important academic skills, but also skills that are highly sought after by employers such as report writing, verbal discussion, using computers to analyse data, decision-making and evaluating issues.

Assessment takes place regularly at KS3, GCSE and A Level and informs pupil progress.  Assessment can take a variety of forms from questioning, homework activities, end of unit tests or more formal end of year or mock exams.